How Redundant Notes Affect Consecutive Interpreting From Chinese Into English

Note-taking is an important and unique tool in consecutive interpreting. Everyinterpreter needs to take notes in order to deliver. Yet everyone does it in his or her ownway. Although there is no universal rule or standard concerning note-taking, experts havearrived at a consensus on its general principle, that is, efficiency comes with short andsimple notes. The author of this thesis also finds that principle of great help during her ownpractice.The author found, while working on this empirical study, that redundant notes hadundermined her performance at the Mock Conference on Education. They commanded toomuch attention to the detriment of active listening and information digesting. Theyimposed on the author logic and sentence structures of the original Chinese language,leading to unnatural or even meaningless expressions in English. They interrupted theauthor’s flow of words and in turn the dynamics of communication. Also, they resulted inmore pressure and anxiety for the author.Redundant notes can be classified as follows: redundant characters, unnecessary orrepetitive information, unfiltered words and insufficient use of symbols. The author arguesfor the necessity to cut these four types of redundancy. Furthermore, efficient note-takingrequires better allocation of attention between listening and note-taking, a clear display ofprimary and secondary information as well as optimizing its function of promptingmemory.By conducting this empirical study, the author hopes to improve her own skills ofnote-taking, which helps to deliver more with less energy and time.